


Can't Catch Your Melody (Don't Know Your Beat)

by biggrstaffbunch



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 19:37:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggrstaffbunch/pseuds/biggrstaffbunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Life, you are told, (and perhaps even love) is so much harder the second time around."</i> Rose comes back to the Doctor, but there are things they both have to re-learn. Five times Rose wondered if it was worth it, and one time she decided it didn't really matter at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Catch Your Melody (Don't Know Your Beat)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ours Is Not a Love Song (Your Heart Is Not the Beat)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084904) by [biggrstaffbunch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggrstaffbunch/pseuds/biggrstaffbunch). 



 

**i. from wanton hearts that would seduce**

What puzzles you is the sex, and somewhere, sometime, a captain named Jack is laughing to the stars.

You close your eyes and the ground beneath your feet isn't the only thing that is foreign and unfamiliar about this world you used to know. The last Time Lord is your latest lover, and the disjunction of it makes your mouth fold and crease under his kiss.

There are no zeppelins in this sky and the Doctor's fingers feel wrong on your skin.

There is still so much you do not know of the years that have gone by since you've been away. Though you can hardly breathe around all the questions you have, the silent plea in the Doctor's gaze makes you swallow your confusion till your throat fairly aches with it, and he continues to bewilder you. His eyes are sweet and dark, shadows in his lashes and galaxies in his gaze, but the mysteries strung through his brow speak of a defiance that unsettles you deep within. The walls are tall around his lanky frame, and as he traces your lips with a mouth that is soft and pliant, behind his teeth lurk bitter memories from times you know nothing of, an unnamed, unfathomable taste sitting on his breath.

You've grown older and changed, but so has he, your Doctor, and the fit of his body against yours is sharp and false.

You dreamt of this, a long time ago. You studied his face and felt his faith and followed him where he walked, drank in the stardust that surrounded him, wiped the dust of faraway lands from his brow. You held his hand, traced the map of his palm and found planets, pictures, portents in every unending line. You wanted him, but you were content to wait. _Someday_ , you thought, and someday is now, but you have no idea what it means after so much time in a world where Harriet Jones was President and the Doctor didn't exist.

Words rest in the cracks of your lips, but nothing comes out when you try to speak. So in the rustle of sheets, the unforgiving bite of the console against your back, the lush greenery of some abandoned hill, your body struggles to show him everything you've forgotten how to say.

"I need you," it whispers, "I've missed you," it cries. "Who are you now?" it wonders. "Who am _I_?"

He answers back in tongues and fingers and the cradle of his thighs against your hips, and it's just the same as it ever was--he's saying things without saying a thing, and you don't know if he even realizes that what's really happened is this:

You lived and then you died and then you lived once more, a vision in the ether until one day, you materialized in the TARDIS, skirt swirling around your knees and throat full of some emotion you still can't name.

(You think it might have been regret, and your heart fractures just a little bit more as you sink into the Doctor's embrace.)

 

 

**ii. bones sinking like stones**

You've always been too human for your own good, you think. Back before, when this universe was still the only you'd ever known, you loved so much and so easily that it fairly spilled over, every breath laden with trust, every word steeped in quiet conviction. Heart almost full to bursting, your hair brushed to careless, bright perfection--you were the epitome of effortless wonder, with your shiny cheeks and cheeky grin, your heavy lashes and boundless compassion. Of course the Doctor wanted you along, all the mysteries and complexities and propensities of this much-maligned, much-loved species in one tiny Rose Tyler-shaped package.

You had your flaws as well. Jealousy, and you were more than a bit short-sighted. Naive. And God, you tossed around the word _forever_ like it was nothing more than a toy. You laugh to think you it, the pity in the Doctor's eyes and the certainty in your own, the shock and frustration and anger and terror in both your voices when that lever shifted on Canary Wharf. Things like the life you led with him, they;re like fireworks, like the burst of light that shifted colors across the sky during the 2012 Olympics. Brilliant and fiery and fierce and full of joy, but fleeting. Over in a wink.

And over there? In the other universe? That girl you were, that Rose had everything to lose but let nothing hold her back, and she wanted desperately to just _come home_. The Rose that crossed through an interdimensional void--well, _she_ has a family that's been left behind and an Earth that doesn't need her to save it any longer and there's no more room for a girl like her on a TARDIS that's got a thousand ghosts floating its halls already. Yesterday's news, you think. You fear.

Time coils in the length of your braid and clocks dance in your eyes, and you rest your head on the Doctor's shoulder despite the disconnect humming in the air all around you. So weak, even now. So human. Desires and wishes and wanting things you can't have.

You still go to bed with your shoes on, but you've finally stopped dreaming of your baby brother, so for now, at least, you'll call it a wash.

 

 

**iii. i know more of the stars and sea**

"Did you miss me?" you ask, and it's not long after Donna leaves and you decide to stay.

"I could have," he breathes, his eyes flat and inward. "I could have missed you, yes." His hand shakes only slightly where it settles on the cool curve of a winding support strut. You touch the rise of his chest, slipping your hands under his coat and sliding your palm up, and you feel the crash of his heartbeats against his ribs. You startle for a moment as you remember: double rhythm.

You don't quite recognize the cadence of his pulse as you lay your lips against his throat, nor do you quite remember the darkness of the vulnerable hollows under his jaw. You mourn for all the things you had left to learn before you went away, and the TARDIS hums a melody you no longer recognize. You know nothing of this ship, this life, and the Doctor tugs your hand as if to pull your through some curtain, push you into some light.

Life, you are told, (and perhaps even love) is so much harder the second time around.

 

 

**iv. hummingbirds fall all around us**

It's been five months, and there's still a feeling of fear trembling through your skin, little tremors running down your spine at the slightest sound.

You've always had a taste for dangerous things. A thirst for adventure once curled inside of you like a slumbering lion, waking with tousled hair and gleaming eyes and a grin so bright it was almost predatory. Jimmy Stone and Mickey Smith and all the boys in between, with their clumsy hands and slick tongues and the tangle of long limbs in a fast car, they taught you all you needed to know about moving a bit too quickly to be strictly safe. You grew up to be vibrant and vivacious and completely unafraid of facing the day.

Perhaps that's how you found yourself running headlong into a rickety old time-ship, trainers squeaking on the grating and the heart of the TARDIS glowing green amidst a nest of tangled metal. You looked up from the console, and into ice-blue eyes, and for that single moment, for that single breath, the earth turned under your feet and you _knew_ what each revolution meant. You saw the universe for all its size: the moon hanging full in the night, the sun spinning around the sky, the stars marking adventures just waiting to unfold. The rest of your life lay ahead (around) you in a tangle of wires and wood, and the Doctor's hand was cool in yours.

So much awe in your eyes, black holes and supernovas rotating in your mind, and the first thing he took you to see was your world burning billions of years in the future.

Looking back, perhaps it was a message of admonishment. _You leapt into this feet-first, Rose Tyler, so when the water closes over your head, don't tell anyone you weren't warned!_ You can imagine the surly set of the Doctor's mouth, the squared-off shoulders, the shadows under his lashes. You wanted to save him the moment you met him, and you didn't even care that he left an explosion in his wake. Just kept trailing after him, day after day, world after world, alien after alien, tragedy after tragedy. Until you looked into the mirror after leaving Mickey behind, on the way to delivering a Slitheen egg to redemption, and you realized that you were starting to leave explosions in _your_ wake, too.

What frightened you most about that revelation was that really, you weren't frightened at all.

Ever since coming back from a parallel London, though, you wonder if your first Doctor would still take you on, seeing you now. You're tired and worn and you're always crying, your features so angular that they're almost awkward around the shiny softness of your wet eyes. You've held guns and shot them, too. Killed people, actual living things. You've discovered what it's like to be left behind on the ground for the cleanup once the fun's all done and had. Broken maybe five or six treaties under the Shadow Proclamation. You've done what you could, what you _must_. No, your first Doctor wouldn't think to ask twice for your company aboard his magnificent time-ship. Your second Doctor, however, the one with the faraway voice and the long silences, the babble that hides empty words, the fingers that stab upwards in righteous fury...your second Doctor, he looks at you with ancient, knowing eyes. And he smiles tiredly, sets the coordinates to Woman Wept, and pleads silently for you not to ask what he's done, and not share what you had to do.

You're not the only one who's always had a taste for dangerous things. This silence between you and the Doctor is a volatile, living thing, but he refuses to speak to you in any way that matters, and you have no strength inside the weary cage of your body to offer him any explanations.

One day soon, the comet's trail of explosions that have followed behind you both will finally catch up to you. You hope you will be ready.

 

 

**v. you're eating my heart away**

 

Torchwood Three is a bit of alright, you decide.

All very impressive. A cavelike hub and a pterodactyl, and all the gadgets a girl could ever want. And a crack crew--the sweet technician, the quiet teaboy of brooding intensity, the wanker of a medic, and that copper who looks disturbingly like a maid you once knew from the 1800's.

And Jack, of course.

Captain Harkness of the bright blue eyes and speculative grins, quick wit and even quicker hands--it's been ages since you've thought of his broad shoulders and narrow waist, his dark hair and dark past and all the shadows in his face even as he smiled. It's been ages since he's grabbed you from behind and buried his cheek in the hollow of your neck and just breathed, slow and languid and somehow desperate in the quiet. You _missed_ Jack, and you hope he missed you, too, wherever he was along the varied paths of time. He was your twin in so many ways, the moon to your sun, even as one unfathomable Time Lord became the dizzying orbit that pulled you both dangerously close. Yeah, you missed Jack, and you wonder if he even knows enough to recognize you anymore.

"Hello, sweetheart," he says quietly, and there are lines on his face that weren't there before. He looks older, and though not many years have passed in this world since you've seen him last, you know that time is relative. Who knows where he's been? Not you, at least, and you're punishing yourself for that right now, for all the questions you didn't ask, for all the demands you didn't make. Left Jack on Satellite Five and trusted the Doctor to tell the truth, and right now, those seem like the two worst decisions you've ever made.

( _In your dreams, you kiss Jack back to life, just like Snow White, the color rising to his white cheeks and melting into an effusive gold. In your dreams, everything is awash in light and he lives forever._ )

"Hullo, back," you whisper, and then, sod it all, you rush at him and he throws his arms open, and he's squeezing you tight, swinging you slightly so that your legs kick up in the air. His collar smells of aftershave and starch, and his overcoat is such that you wonder if he knows it makes him look horribly ostentatious, but it doesn't matter, because he's holding you and for the first time since you shimmered into existence on this plane, things feel right. "I'm so glad you're here," you say, and your voice is muffled against his skin, but he must hear you anyway, because he chuckles.

"I'm glad _you're_ here," he says, and sets you down. "Now let me look at you." He steps back and you expect a leer, something to remind you of the tight t-shirts and glib winks and all the laughter that was once threaded in the tenor of his voice. But instead, he cocks his head, his brow furrowing. His eyes go blank and his voice gentles as he begins, "Rose..." He squints, seems to look at something above you, behind you, around you, and you swat the air, wandering when the staticky void energy will stop saying more about you than your own history.

Jack steps closer, his voice lowers. "Rose," he says again. "Are you very sure this is where you belong?"

Your heart drops to your shoes and you fight the burn high up in the bridge of your nose. All your illusions fall away in a fairly fast instant, and the teaboy and the techie both look up in interest and concern as you jam a fist in your mouth to keep from crying. "No," you mumble, around salty skin and a split knuckle. "No, Jack, I'm really not."

Jack frowns, and behind you, the Doctor sighs.

 

 

**vi. i'll be the one to keep you one disaster less**

Time Lords don't have consorts. Except when they do, you suppose. Except when _one_ does.

The Doctor's always been a bit given to rebellion, you know. Companions aren't meant for sex or for love. They're meant to be friends, followers, partners, champions, _assistants_. Sarah Jane Smith told you that much, at least, and you're not sure yet whether you're grateful for your distinction or wary. Weary. The Doctor latches on to you, and you want so badly to believe that this is worth it, the way he looks at you and the life you're living. You know that helping people--saving the world and traveling the universe and defending the downtrodden--that's all perfectly, completely, exactly what you've always wanted to do. Making a difference, changing a life. Leaving your mark in a way that continues, grows, flourishes like so many flowers on a tree. You want to give the world something that's strong enough to blot out all it's taken away.

But this, this way the Doctor has of holding his hand out to you, beckoning you to him--you don't know what it's supposed to mean. He's defying his very nature, you're wagering, shoving through instinct and centuries of ingrained rules in order to keep you just a little bit closer than you ever were. You think he's probably staving off the inevitable, the day you leave for good, where no amount of tinkering in the mainframe of Torchwood One could drop you through the gap between this world and the one in which you'd be stuck. It's noble, this goal of his, and your heart swells all the more for it when you look at him in the dull glow of the corridor light.

He looks at you, his brown eyes wide and his long nose noble, lips thin and straight. "Doctor?" you ask, and tug the hem of your shirt down low over your thighs, conscious of the way your breasts hang heavy under the thin material.

He's lying on his mattress, in his darkened room, and his tie is on the floor, his shirt rumpled. He sits up and says, "Rose. Come to bed."

You walk as if in a trance, and the hesitation must be clear on your face, because he smiles welcomingly, patting the cotton of his sheets in what can only be described as an inviting manner. You smile back, the affection on your face almost involuntary, the silliness of his floppy fringe and soppy expression making your steps almost light. His grin melts as you crawl onto the bed, his hands reaching up and sifting through your hair tenderly. "Oh, Rose," he says, and you close your eyes as he kisses your forehead, pulls you close. He curls around you as both of you lie down, his arm tucked securely around your waist and his hearts beating steadily at your back. His fingers drift down to slide over the tops of your thighs, up the hem of your shirt, dipping and sliding over the skin of your belly. He feels warm for once, and so alive.

You never want this to end, and you know it must. That by challenging the norm, changing the status quo, the Doctor has already probably chopped off _years_ of the time you have with him. Just the way fate works, you suppose. That's what you've learned since coming back--that happiness isn't for people like you and him. You both belong to the ones you're meant to save. The universe first, cuddling in his Time Lord bed, second. You shake your head and laugh; least your inner monologue's got a bit more color to it.

"What?" the Doctor asks, and you turn your chin, looking up at him through your lashes. His expression is infinitely fond.

You want to tell him that you've figured it out. That there's no more feeling safe in this world because now you know what you refused to acknowledge so long ago. That you and him are temporary. And all the duvets, all the darkness, all the gasps and groans and running you could do, there isn't anything that's gonna change the way of things. You want to tell him that you understand what it is to love someone and know that life is far from for sure. You want to thank him for carrying that load for so long, and you want to tell him it's okay, that you'll share the burden for awhile.

Instead, you turn back around, relaxing into his touch, and say, "Nothing, Doctor. 'S nothing."

And for the first time in a very long while, you sleep without any dreams at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Reposted from LiveJournal.


End file.
